A blog for the United States branch of the global Centre for Fortean Zoology

At the beginning of the 21st Century monsters still roam the remote, and sometimes not so remote, corners of our planet. It is our job to search for them. The Centre for Fortean Zoology [CFZ] is - we believe - the largest professional, scientific and full-time organisation in the world dedicated to cryptozoology - the study of unknown animals. Since 1992 the CFZ has carried out an unparalleled programme of research and investigation all over the world. Since 2009 we have been running the increasingly popular CFZ Blog Network, and although there has been an American branch of the CFZ for over ten years now, it is only now that it has a dedicated blog.

In Russia's Primorsky Safari Park, a goat was placed in the tiger compound for Timur the Tiger to eat. The goat did not find this arrangement congenial and resisted when the striped gourmet approached. Timur backed up and now the two have become good friends.

Sunday, 29 November 2015

Chessie is a sea-monster reported to live in Chesapeake Bay (Maryland). It is said to be serpentine, measuring 25-40 feet. The above picture is the cover of a coloring book published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.An early report of Chessie may date from 1840. The creature described is likely to have been a turtle. In 1936 an unknown reptile was seen in the Bush River, which flows into the Bay, by a helicopter. A serpentine creature was reported by fishermen in 1943. In 1978 a serpent was reported in the Potomac River, which also flows into the Bay. There were other sightings in this river in 1980. In August, 1984, there were further sightings. A possible sighting from a boat named the Impasse was reported in 1980, but those involved never claimed to have seen a monster, merely anh animal, which may have been a manatee. In 2014 a serpentine creature, 25'-30' long, was seen from the Arundel Beach Road at a distance of only 5 feet.My own suspicion is that we may be dealing here with large eels. However, we should not forget that a dinosaur called the Astrodon roamed Maryland, but the fossil record would indicate it died out 100 million years ago. Could there be a few lingering specimens off the Maryland coast?

1893: The New York Herald reports that multiple
witnesses, including locals George Farrell and "Red" McDowell, have
seen a large, hairy "wild man" roaming near Long Island's Rockaway
Beach. The man—or thing—is never captured.

Albert Rosales, who has long provided invaluable online works on encounters with humanoid beings, has now released another book of his findings. The title is available from Amazon.282pp.Price: $15.95 [paperback]; $6.06 [kindle].

1977: While hunting in Tippah County, Mississippi, the
unnamed witness sees what he first mistakes for a man, then realizes it is a
hairy biped 7.5 to 8 feet tall, with a "black
face, shaggy reddish brown fur, standing upright, then running" through
thickets of thorns, muskedine and kudzu vines. He reports the sighting to the
GCBRO 28 years later, on November 31, 2005.

Thursday, 26 November 2015

The following report comes from the 19th Century - 1830, to be precise. The British navy ship Rob Roy was sailing towards St Helena, an island in the middle of the Atlantic which has the distinction of not being near anywhere else. At about 5p.m. the huge head of a serpentine creature rose out of the water to the fore of the ship, to the great astonishment of those aboard. This creature may have been as surprised as the jolly tars concerned - it certainly seemed somewhat nonplussed. Captain James Stockdale was later to write that twenty foot snakes he had killed would have fitted into the animal's mouth. He estimated the animal to be about 129 feet in length. It had a fin between its shoulders. Captain Stockdale in his report evinced a desire never to meet the creature again.

1968: While hunting north of Floodwood, Minnesota, witness Uno
Heikkila reportedly saw a hairy biped roughly four feet tall jump down from a
tree and flee into the forest, watching it from a distance of some 125 feet.

Forbes, in his Gaelic Names of Beasts (1905) gives details of a very curious animal in the folklore of the north of Scotland. To this animal is applied the name of hedgehog, but it is not the creature to which we normally give this name. If you should chance upon it, it looks like a stone. However, it can change shape. If farmers harvesting met with it in a cornfield, they would leave a clump of corn around it. Forbes himself saw such a clump.

2006: A resident of Itawamba
County, Mississippi, reports hearing a "long, drawn out noise that sounded like
kind of a cross between a yell and a moan," which he also heard around his
house several times during the previous week. He sees nothing unusual outside, but in his
subsequent report to the GCBRO, claims the cries sound "exactly like the
howl that is on your multimedia page," purportedly caused by Bigfoot.

The term bullbeggar may have originally signified a mythical goblin which looked in some respects like a bull. Nowadays the term has a somewhat vaguer application, equating to American booger. This one hung out on Creech Hill, Somerset, England.

1977: Following multiple Bigfoot sightings on the Standing
Rock Indian Reservation, a dozen members of the Yanktonai Native American tribe
stage a nocturnal campfire gathering to lure the creature. Afterward, they
report seeing two hairy bipeds crouching in the brush nearby.

Carrying on from my Norwegian giant/troll story yesterday, the term troll is very imprecise and has been used for a wide number of creatures, ranging from the gigantic to the diminutive. However, I would hold that it was sometimes used to designate groups of wildmen which, I suspect, persisted in Europe into historical times and may be found even today in remote locations.In the 19th Century there were so many reports in Sweden, a highly forested country, that mythologist Benjamin Thorpe postulated that there were populations of uncivilized human still living in the woods. There have been other reports of wildmen from a number of European countries, some even being quite recent. Whether these are permanent residents, interdimensional beings or mere figments of the imagination is, of course, another matter.

Saturday, 21 November 2015

Should you find yourself in Norway, there is a curious geological structure there called Juluporten (Giant's Door). Beyond it dwells the giant Jutul (sometimes described as a troll), so legend has it. It is said if you throw three stones in succession at the door, the Giant, referred to as Jutul, will answer it. This structure, by the way, is to be found on Road 454 in Oppland. The Giant's wife also dwells within.Now, if I believed a Giant dwelt on the far side of the door, I wouldn't go so far as to cast stones at it, lest it provoke him to anger. I am somewhat advanced in years, not up to tackling a wrathful giant. However, this particular giant has a story told about him which is worth mentioning.A Norwegian called John Blessom, an historical person who throve in the 17th Century, was down in Copenhagen for litigious purposes. He was, however, homesick. Jutul happened also to be visiting the city and offered him a ride home on his sled. The speed with which Jutul's horse drew this vehicle was breathtaking. Blessom could not discern sea or sky. At one stage they stopped for a rest and, as they shot off again, Blessom thought he saw a pole with a skull on the top of it. At last they reached the Giant's doorway. Jutul went in and told Blessom to go home and not to look back. Guess what? He looked back and there was a twist in his neck ever after.The reader may have noticed there is some apparent confusion about whether Jutul is a Giant or a Troll. Actually, however, the word Troll was used in Northern Europe to cover a wide variety of supernatural beings. Very big trolls were said to turn to stones or trees if daylight struck them. A variant of this, supplied by the folklorist G. Hyltén-Cavallius, is that Giants died if struck by sunlight but Trolls burst asunder.

Troll

I don't think I would like to be in the vicinity of a bursting troll. It would not be pleasant to be struck by the débris flying through the air.